Open Ballot: will you take KDE 4.4 for a spin?

Posted at 11:25pm on Tuesday February 16th 2010

KDE 4.4 is here, bringing with it improved support for social networking and online collaboration, plus thousands of bug fixes. The question is, do you intend to try it out? Post a comment below with your thoughts!

Usually our answers come down to a simple yes or no, but here you're welcome to prevaricate as much as you want - are you going to upgrade to 4.4 simply because your distro will sooner or later? Are you still using 3.5 and are going to stay there until you die? Are you a Gnome user tempted by all the new features, but unsure about switching desktop? Does the sheer number of bugs fixed scare you a little, or is it all progress in the right direction?

As per usual, we'll read out the best comments in our podcast, but please do make sure you leave a name other than Anonymous Penguin!

Your comments

Duh!

If I will try 4.4 out? I had to fire up Dolphin to check witch version I am running now, with this result: 4.4.00 So, yes, I am trying it out. I did not even notice the change.

My computer runs Kubuntu 9.10 with the official Kubuntu-KDE-backports repositories activated, so the new KDE version just rolled out and got upgraded. No worries, and no glitches.

You have to realise the fact that KDE is not 4.0 any more, it has just worked, for the last couple of releases. Version 4.3 was very solid, and 4.4 adds cool features that makes your computer outshine Windows 7 and Mac OS X with ease.

The only thing that still does not work quite as it should is dual screens. It does not matter how I configure my X server, games and other programs that want to run fullscreen either stretches out over my two monitors, or simply refuse to work at all.

Other than that, rock solid!

No

Nobody Important (not verified) - February 17, 2010 @ 1:48am

I run a very tight ship on my computer. Minimal, simple, clean. Everything I need and nothing I don't.

KDE 3 was the absolute anti-thesis to my computing philosophy. It had more knobs and widgets and kahoozles than I could count. I tried KDE 4 and was struck by the same objections in a lesser fashion. It's so busy and complicated to do the simplest of tasks. Too many options. So much that I don't need.

I can become accustomed to a desktop over a period of time, but Gnome has been very, very good to me and my productivity. KDE has always been the absolute opposite of what I strive for. It's not that it's wrong or that it's a bad desktop, it's just not what I want.

NTN (Not This Noob)

adamg2000 (not verified) - February 17, 2010 @ 1:54am

I run two computers, OS X on my laptop (for work) and an Ubuntu desktop machine I started running in December (as a holiday project) to see if I could use Linux tools to replace the OS X machine.

Firstly my intent is commercially driven (ooooh!). I became attracted to Linux through the use of Open Source software on the Mac (NeoOffice, a port of Open Office being the entry point), though not by the zero price point, but through its quality and diversity. I am also a *tinkerer*, willing to get under the hood.

However I own my own business and cannot afford to spend a great deal of time administering a machine with stability problems, network incompatibility etc. for the sake of bleeding edge desktops.

The sheer amount of Press about Ubuntu, tutorials aimed at it etc. made the decision to use that Distro clear - which brings me to the point.

The research I conducted on which Desktop Manager to use, from a tools perspective indicated KDE, however from a stability/recognisability perspective Gnome won. At this early stage the choice was obvious, especially as I can use KDE utilities on Gnome; which I do - I fell in love with Kate ;).

In the past three months I have become satisfied with Gnome, adding Gnome Do and Compiz to the mix it has all the features OS X has - in fact in some situations these features are improved upon.

In summary, I haven't the time or inclination to try KDE 4 at this stage - though I wish I did as if Kenneth (above) is correct) it doesn't deserve the Bad Press it gets.

I hope this is relevant, on topic and of interest.

NTN (Not This Noob) Addendum

adamg2000 (not verified) - February 17, 2010 @ 1:57am

PS: I was aware of Kubuntu - but it not being the main distro put me off.

Maybe from a Live CD but proably not overall

liberty (not verified) - February 17, 2010 @ 2:02am

I was a long time KDE user and even persisted a little with the initial 4.x releases but switched to Gnome after stability and lack of features (compared to 3.5). Funnily enough I tried the whole "week with KDE" challenge as well and still can't get rid of the boot up logo, icons, etc. (I realise this is more a distro issue though than a KDE issue)
I miss the configurability inherent in the KDE desktop but really don't miss anything. I started to play around with GTK (mainly though the Mono/Online Hudzilla coding academy) so that is making me lean more towards Gnome.
I will give it a spin when I get a LXF Live CD but will probably leave it at that until I can see really compelling reasons to switch back. I still look back on KDE 3.5 with nostalgia - I'm not sure any Desktop environment has matched 3.5s capability yet!

BTW week without the command line is near on impossible!

KDE is great. especially

Foolz (not verified) - February 17, 2010 @ 3:35am

KDE is great. especially with version 4.4. I think by the time 4.5 or 4.6 come out. all the translation from 3.5.x will be complete, Kile, and K3B is the only two app that I can think of that is still at beta from their KDE4.x version. I really want to switch to KDE. However, there is three little things that keep me away from it, and they are not even that big of a deal(in term of difficulty of development). I think it will take developers a day or two to finish it.

First KDE menu doesn't really come with a "hide icon" option. sometime, I just want to make my menu nice and clean, some of the app that got install do come with ugly icon or no icon at all. the other time, the list is simple too long, I would like to just hide some of the items, I don't want to delete them because sometime I might and will use them, and often I don't remember their name. The kick off menu doesn't really solve the long menu problem, the whole point about me hate the long menu is because you have to scroll up and down in order to see the whole menu. and the Kick off menu simple make me scrolling up and down the entire time, I am shopping on my menu. Just want a hide icon option, simple as that.

Secondly, is those round edge or the windows, without "special effect" turn on, there is some little white spot on all four corners to square up the windows. Like really, at this point of time!!! it shouldn't be like this. NO Desktop environment have this issue. I know the desktop I run KDE is just using the cheapest intel graphic, like GMA 3000. But even that, it shouldn't have this kind of issue. I didn't have KDE running on anything else beside this chip set. So this might be a bugs on the intel driver or something. The point is really being the develop team shouldn't just focus on the appearance of the Desktop with special effect on, but also, appearance of the Desktop without special effect. Sometime, people just want to save every recourse they have to make thing runs a little bit faster. (and it is not even that little, you can totally see the difference with or without special effect on. It is much smoother without it.)

The last and most important thing is those in panel system monitor. like really, they are the best thing ever existed on Desktop computer history to me. just 4 little box, you are able to know everything that is going on with your hardware, and work load. and you can control your CPU step simply by clicking those little CPU app. it is simply amazing. it's not like KDE doesn't have something similar, but they are not nearly as good as the one in GNOME. I mean really just copy it. I don't care it is not original or what so ever. This is thing that work, and worked really really well. I mean it is sure more useful that putting snow on the desktop. if spend so many time to make something "looks" cool to the user, why not make something that "IS useful" to the user?

KDE have been working out pretty nicely, Over all it is wonderful. But it is really those little things that bugs me and make me running away from it. Like I really want to use it, but because it missing two tiny features. I have to turn my back on it. (it is not worth it, KDE.) For people who is more experience with computer. most of the "WOW" features is more or less meaningless. Instead, some of the very tiny details is what make them choose from one but not the others. We have a lot of fun with our computer, but it is not really a toy, we want to get the thing we want to get done, finish! Basic in a way is more important than advance sometime.

And one thing that I have notice over the year of Open Source Development is that most of the "BIG" project is becoming more commercialized. What I mean by that is that they are focusing on gaining user land, instead making thing work as good as possible. They are totally targeted on consumer, and just try to be creative and original without thinking the new stuff is really that useful. I mean just think of the root of Linux, the UNIX philosophy is still the best philosophy I have seen on making tools. And things have been over visualized as well. I mean I love visual effects, but hate them if the actual function is miss or not working well. Gaining user is important, but it is only important if you don't lose the user you already have.

Once last thing I want to say which is a bit off topic is that I think both KDE and GNOME really should look at each other and learn from either other. It is "OPEN" Sources after all, if project didn't take advantage out of it. It is kind of silly. Of course both project do have their own philosophy to follow, which is great, so people can go with what they like, but something in one but not the other didn't really go against the philosophy of neither the project.

Most Definitely

Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - February 17, 2010 @ 5:07am

I am a recent convert to KDE (I never used KDE 3), and I am really liking the desktop. In fact, I'm using KDE 4.4 right now. There's still a few bugs, but I think that in a few weeks to a month it will surpass 4.3 in stability. Plus, it's got a lot of interesting new features that I really like--namely the window grouping feature. I think that the people behind KDE are starting to find their niche with 4, with a relatively even balance of stability and new features in each new release. I can safely say that KDE 4.4 is going to be my standard for a while.

No, I won't use it, because it's still KDE, and thus a mess.

Mike_IronFist (not verified) - February 17, 2010 @ 5:34am

KDE 4.4 is simply a stable, bug-free...unusable mess.

Honestly, even if it runs properly, even if it's stable and crash-free, it's terrible. There are dozens upon dozens of menu options for things that users wouldn't even think of wanting to customize, and frankly it's just annoying and cluttered.

There's nothing wrong with making options accessible for power users, but no "power user" is in need of the confusing dozens upon dozens of menus you'd have to wade through trying to customize your window colors, for example.

KDE's selection of options is a like a car filled to the brim with knick-knacks, books, clothes, and other assorted junk. Sure, people enjoy or make use of these things once in a while, but when you want to get from point A to point B, it all just gets in the way.

All in all, I much prefer GNOME. If I had to live without GNOME, I'd probably use Fluxbox or LXDE before becoming a KDE user - unlike KDE, Fluxbox and LXDE don't bombard the user with five million check boxes and option tabs.

No way

df (not verified) - February 17, 2010 @ 5:43am

I started using KDE WAY back in the day (10 years ago -- almost from the start) but it has just become a mess. These days gnome works great and doesn't get in my way. I think gnome started to turn the corner when Ximian came around and they just blew past KDE and never looked back. Ubuntu has been a huge help as well.

Also as a developer I like that gtkmm is standard C++ as opposed to Qt (I'm looking at moc).

Unlikely

DaveS (not verified) - February 17, 2010 @ 6:12am

There is much talk of desktops improving productivity and user experience. Maybe so, but I think they can get in the way, drag down performance, and hog resources. This seems to be a worsening trend. Certainly until I find them wanting, I will stick with JWM or Xfce.

Yes, eventually

spiffytech (not verified) - February 17, 2010 @ 6:23am

I'll move to KDE 4.4 when the next round of distros rolls out. I'm always hesitant to backport major components to my system.

Unlikely

Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - February 17, 2010 @ 7:17am

I occasionally dip my toes in the KDE pool, but usually return to my familiar tweaked Gnome. Partly this is because most of my work is on a notebook. I will probably give KDE a better try on my new desktop PC with a bit more screen space.

In due course

John (not verified) - February 17, 2010 @ 7:52am

I've been running most KDE4 versions since 2008 alongside my production system and then upgrading when I was satisfied everything was OK; so I will install it on my second computer and give it a spin while continuing with 4.3 for day to day work.

No, thanks...

Another Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - February 17, 2010 @ 8:32am

When I first installed Linux a couple of years ago via Ubuntu 8.04, I found that I loved KDE 3 far above GNOME & XFCE, and didn't like KDE 4 much at all. (Didn't help that KDE 4 was more resource-intensive.) So much for the many claims I've seen that KDE 3.5x fans are just resistant to change, considering I was a raw newbie at the time!

Eventually I had to switch to GNOME full-time just to upgrade my distro -- I've tried KDE 4 a bunch of times since then, hoping to fall for it...but no dice. I've seen comments that if people like me really wanted, we could just change a bunch of settings and make it seem mostly-like KDE 3... The problem is, I don't especially want to slog through all of that work, especially not when I was also pretty comfortable with GNOME from the start.

These days, everything seems a bit slow/bloated in Ubuntu as it is, so KDE 4 really isn't an option at all. If I go in any particular direction beyond changing distros, it's (if anything) going to be to follow the more-experienced users towards lighter environments or even straight-up window managers.

KDE has great potential with

filip007 (not verified) - February 17, 2010 @ 8:52am

KDE has great potential with his space look interface and special software can easily go 64-bit but mixing KDE and Gnome stuff is not my first choice of desktop use. I have done experimenting and am seriously staying on Ubuntu no question about that, it all runs just perfect.

Yes I'll try - Keep if it makes me more productive

Baldrick - February 17, 2010 @ 9:06am

I switched my day-to-day machine from WinXp to Ubuntu this past summer once I felt there were comparable tools to put aside any productivity concerns (ie. OpenOffice, Evolution, etc.)

Some things still feel dysfunctional especially when I collaborate on material that is produced with some commercial apps by colleagues as well as some other nuisances.

I'll give KDE a try and if it smoothes out those bumps I may switch to Kubuntu.

Unlikely

Ray Woods (not verified) - February 17, 2010 @ 9:22am

All I want from my computer is to run the applications I need with the minimum of fuss, quickly and reliably. As my current desktop already does this, why change?

Well, curiosity may get the better of me and I might try a KDE visualization but, unless it provides a very dramatic improvement...

I give KDE a try with every

Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - February 17, 2010 @ 9:26am

I give KDE a try with every new release but every time i get back to GNOME. And so I will with version 4.4.

KDE is cool, feature rich, stable (finally) and with a better composite engine than GNOME's but sadly is complicated and bloated.

A DE should be invisible to the user: Performing a task (launching a program for instance) should require the same effort necessary to open a door through its handle and KDE fails on this

No!!

Anonymous (not verified) - February 17, 2010 @ 9:33am

Still lacks a lot of usability, it´s buggy, wierd,...

No

bloodorangeonline (not verified) - February 17, 2010 @ 10:07am

I'm not really interested in KDE. I've tried it in the past but I like and prefer Gnome, or XFCE. I'm sure KDE is perfectly fine, but it just doesn't suit me. I think my main thing is that I don't like the desktop-replaced-with-widgety-idea-thing. But that's just me...

No

Dylan (not verified) - February 17, 2010 @ 10:44am

I did try KDE 4.3 and I still can't get used to it. Im not saying its bad but its just not for me. Also I find that alot more applications are developed for Gnome.

In my opinion Gnome is a nicer toolkit. Visually its sleek and elegant... I find KDE as a toolkit is visually a clone of Windows.

Lastly im not a fan of the immature attitude of the KDE developers. I hope they will cut the act of putting a K in front of all their applications. I would be embarrassed if I had to tell a friend I use Koffice to type letters!

At least in this regard Gnome is improving. A recent example would be the renaming of Gscrot to Shutter.

no

johnvile - February 17, 2010 @ 10:56am

like (liberty) said Maybe from a Live CD but I couldn't live with it.
I used Suse back in the day for just over a year, while the interface wasn't to bad the whole experience put me off KDE.
KDE is proof that the Infinite monkey theorem is correct. Only in an infinite space with an infinite number of universes can KDE really make sense. It's a shame were stuck in the universe that has the crap KDE, whilst just a few universes away people are using a really shit hot version.

Long is the road

FabriceV (not verified) - February 17, 2010 @ 11:02am

1. I do not use a desktop simply because it is less buggy.
2. Whatever the desktop improvements, too much applications remain too buggy.
3. KDE Desktop is far from overall productive.
4. Too much KDE applications have awfull GUI.
5. Too much Qt applications are so far from KDE look and feel that they integrate better into the Gnome desktop.

That's all folks!

At some point...

Tobi - February 17, 2010 @ 11:25am

...boredom will overcome me and I will try it - regardless of its version number. Hope Andrew will have to explain some complicated part of the Kernel today!

Speed phreak

spaceyjase - February 17, 2010 @ 11:47am

Ah, I'll give it a go but I think I'll fire up a VM to do so. I tend to rely on the same applications to do stuff (e.g. vi is editor, etc) and not those that come with the WM so the environmental extras hold no value for me and just clutter the menus :P Graphical 'things' are nice but I'm not really a 'desktop' person, so to speak. The gadgets are again something that just sit behind my work and don't really draw me into their use; I've managed thus far without them so it's novelty value really and it just slows things down.

Xfce is nice and fast these days and things nice and responsive. But like I say, I'll take a look 'cos I could be missing out on something big!

I am using it now. I will stay with it.

bananaoomarang (not verified) - February 17, 2010 @ 11:59am

I am using kde(mod) 4.4 now on arch linux. My computer is no beast and about 5 years old. It runs absolutly fine. I love being bombarded with checkboxes and configuration is really what makes kde shine. Here it is like I have designed my own interface, and all by just checking boxes. Everyday I come accross a new option. It's fun and when configured, kde looks good AND is just as productive as gnome.

However plasma STILL CRASHES RANDOMLY. WHYYYYYYYY. This is the only thing which annoys me about kde and I hope this will be fixed soon. I cannot believe that the devs, after FOUR MAJOR releases STILL fail to stop this happening.
I will still use kde because I dislike gnome more.

KDE is nice but GNOME is the real deal

Exabyte - February 17, 2010 @ 12:34pm

No I am quite happy whit GNOME although KDE is interesting it just isn’t for me. I have tried both and have found that the GNOME environment is the right one for me as an old windows user. KDE just doesn’t work the way I want my desktop to function.

I used to be a die-hard KDE

Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - February 17, 2010 @ 1:06pm

I used to be a die-hard KDE fan. I was excited about KDE4 and I still am, but while I was waiting for it to get better I started using Gnome. I was surprised to find out how much it had improved and now I have become a die-hard Gnome fan! We will see what happens with Gnome 3.0. The best thing about Linux is choice. It is great to have a multitude of desktop interface choices!

I'll give it a try... once again.

Mel (not verified) - February 17, 2010 @ 2:18pm

I always run the newest version of KDE for a week or so after they launch it. I see what's new and play with it a little bit, I always check if they've they changed the crappy menu and if they've simplified all that mess that KDE is. But I always return to Gnome.

Debian

xyx (not verified) - February 17, 2010 @ 2:22pm

I would love to try, but it is not in Debian (I mean testing/unstable) yet.

Sure,why not?

PittsburghBob (not verified) - February 17, 2010 @ 3:07pm

Yes, I'll be trying it. Onward and upward...

fringe whinge

gumb (not verified) - February 17, 2010 @ 3:17pm

When Windows XP ruled the roost and the disaster of Vista arrived, Linux could rightfully claim to offer the most advanced and contemporary OS interface. But whatever your thoughts on Mac OSX and Windows 7 (and I'm not exactly enamoured myself), they are nonetheless improving and moving forward now, and Linux has to keep up the pace.

KDE4 has gone further than most in this regard. Yes, they got their communications wrong at the beginning and that's been widely reported, but those days are now past. Some of the naysayers left over from that debacle and who switched to GNOME had better be prepared for another shake-up later in the year when GNOME3 arrives and makes its own perfectly valid attempt to take a big step forward. Ultimately, those left out in the cold for a second time will have to either make compromises, or start to realise that they represent the fringe elements of users, which was not so evident until now since Linux itself was inherently a representation of the fringe user, but Linux's moves into the mainstream will increasingly show them to be at the margins. The good news is that with Linux, users still have a choice, and can follow one of those more marginal paths without being alienated. I just wish some of them would get on with whatever choice they make and not devote so much energy to bad-mouthing the considerable attempts at improvements that some projects are trying to make, even if it's no longer going in their own preferred direction.

The comments so far highlight an interesting and common paradox in negative attitudes towards KDE4. Many still cite it as over-complicated and bloated, whilst the other half complain about dumbing down and removal of options. Aside from a few specific elements that one could pick out as going too far in either direction (the ubiquitous K-centric naming for example), these two opposing views cannot be logically reconciled and therefore regarded as wholly valid, which I believe only goes to prove that too much is just puff and hot air. The KDE devs are making gallant attempts to beat a path down the middle between ease of use and configurability, with apps like the latest Gwenview being perhaps the best representation of that.

And as for me, KDE 4.3 has reached such a state of maturity that I've no need to grab 4.4 just yet. I'll happily wait till the next openSUSE release in the summer, and take the odd backported app if necessary.

Tried it, not impressed

Niadh (not verified) - February 17, 2010 @ 3:35pm

I run arch linux so just followed the wiki instructions to install it in a vm, set some of the settings to 'low graphics, low cpu'.

I should point out I have always loved gnome, but a few of the new 4.4 features sounded cool, but I wanted to see how they worked in practice.

First there is the ability to 'dock' windows together in a group, which was cool, until I wanted to open an application specific tab in a tabbed group, the terminal had tabs at the bottom, the file manager had the tabs at the top, the applications themselves are very inconsistent, which makes for a rather disorientating experience when trying to figure out where X application opens it's tab bar.

Second I wanted to install a new theme (my greatest weakness about theming ability, am always changing my themes) and couldn't figure out an easy way to install themes. In gnome I either click install and navigate to the theme tarball and install or drag and drop the theme onto the theme application and it's installed, nothing like this I could quickly find, I don't know if it's specific to arch or not, but as a test I just couldn't bring myself to find out.

It still feels slow, even in a vm, the vm in question has both kde and gnome, gnome always feels pretty responsive, in fact, kde crashed the vm, something I have never achieved in gnome!

The new menu button, I again got confused when I hovered over each of the categories and it changes to the one I hovered over, but in the sub-categories I had to click to select it, this is another instance of getting confused with inconsistent behaviour.

It's a vast improvement on kde 3 in my opinion, but still not something i'd ever really use.

@gumb

Nobody Important (not verified) - February 17, 2010 @ 3:48pm

Directed to the above comment by gumb:

So because different, unrelated commentators disagree with each other on why they don't like KDE 4, you claim, we can safely ignore what they have to say?

My dear friend, what on earth have you been smoking?

I'll try it. Again!

gert (not verified) - February 17, 2010 @ 4:38pm

Like many above, I have tried it several times. Always to come back to Gnome for one reason or another. Usually because something that is very simple in Gnome is very complicated in KDE.
Last example is my Nikon D90 camera. I connect it to Gnome and the open options dialog appears.
I do the same in KDE and nothing happens. I did finally manage to mount the camera as a volume, but that is just not good enough. Users expect a dialog to pop up when they connect a camera, period!
I also don't understand the philosophy of the widgets on the desktop. I hardly ever see my desktop. It is usually covered under 20+ windows. I need quick navigation between windows, not a widget on a desktop.
The start menu is also annoying. It is too complicated to use and uses too much real estate for what is on display.
I hope this doesn't sound too negative. I really want to like KDE.

ITT: FUD

Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - February 17, 2010 @ 5:04pm

@the guy above
KDE sure has a popup after it detects a device.
you can select it in the device manager plasmoid and choose the action(e.g. importing fotos)
if you didnt get a notification, you removed this standard plasmoid or your system is fucked up
you can even select to have it mounted automatcally, at login, etc.

will try it, for sure

fraxinus (not verified) - February 17, 2010 @ 5:30pm

... but ... who knows?

I have used KDE 3 every day for six years. Like the poster above I REALLY want to like KDE 4! Honest! I am not finding it easy. However, I am still curious, and doing my best to keep an open mind on the subject.

Yes, I'll give it a try!

It's All a Matter of Taste

Mike_IronFist (not verified) - February 17, 2010 @ 5:36pm

@gumb
"The comments so far highlight an interesting and common paradox in negative attitudes towards KDE4. "

It's not a paradox, it's what's called OPPOSING OPPINIONS. When opinions oppose eachother, they tend to be in support of the opposite things.

KDE fans seem to enjoy the four-billion configuration options for its dialogs. KDE-naysayers dislike this. That's exactly why the fans would complain about it getting "dumbed down"; they like a feature that the naysayers dislike.

As for your comments that KDE4 manages to keep up with Windows 7 and Mac OSX, I couldn't disagree more. It's a ripoff of Windows Vista's interface - that's hardly "keeping up".

Trying it out.

Mark Fraser (not verified) - February 17, 2010 @ 6:38pm

I've upgraded to 4.4 on my laptop, but not on my main computers yet as I've had a few problems with it. Firstly all the hassle trying to get Akonadi to work properly. Secondly some apps don't like something with KDE 4.4, don't know if it has something to do with Qt 4.6, but I can't get Kdenlive to do anything useful without crashing on me.

Sorry, no

uomosenzanome - February 17, 2010 @ 9:01pm

I'm happy with the balance of speed and eyecandy in my GNOME 2.22.2 desktop environment in Debian stable. I don't have time for testing things out these days, I have real work to do. "Improved support for social networking" sounds like distractions rather than a useful feature, and I have all the online collaboration I need with google docs. When KDE 4.4 makes it to debian stable, maybe it would then be worth trying it out then.

One choice too many.

Exasperated Penguin (not verified) - February 17, 2010 @ 9:01pm

I use Fedora / Gnome, but always try the latest KDE either via OpenSUSE or Kubuntu. And so I will with 4.4 at some point, but expect, as always, to return to my Gnome Fedora soon after, frustrated, confused and disappointed. Partly because KDE never lives up to it's hype. Partly because Gnome is not a very exciting alternative (although it does work well enough). But mostly because I wish I didn't have this choice to worry about. One standard desktop is what I want - hopefully Gnome 3.0 will finally deliver this.

Tried it already

grendel (not verified) - February 17, 2010 @ 9:29pm

Solved some problems, but some applications were cast into dependency hell.

Has bloat been reduced ?

Florian (not verified) - February 17, 2010 @ 11:19pm

I've used KDE 3 for many years and have recently switched
to Kubuntu 9.10. On the same hardware (thinkpad t42p) basic
tasks now take significantly longer. Switching to a different
Desktop for instance. Waiting for a menu to pop up - on a
machine that is pretty much idle otherwise. Hate it.
It's slower than Windows. Ouch!
IMHO it would be much better to get simple stuff like
font selection working properly. Why can't KDE (konsole)
find my installed fonts? emacs does. I know that's not the
sexy stuff. But it goes a long way with users.
Everybody wants a snappy desktop. Most people can do without
translucency.

no. maybe...no.

Strider (not verified) - February 17, 2010 @ 11:45pm

If I had enough money to buy a computer fast enough to not freeze up after five minutes of working in Chrome in KDE, and had enough time to figure out all the random knobs and widgets and the other half-billion things I don't need, like widgets, and the things I do, such as dual-screening (ever tried installing KDE on a Gnome machine and try to dual screen? try it if you dare.) I would love to have an over-complicated, slow desktop experience, with the cool look. However, as it is, I have a machine that freezes every time I try to use KDE 4, and just don't have the time to figure out the over-complicated user interface.No.

Ooooooohhh yes! :D

Dante (not verified) - February 18, 2010 @ 1:30am

Yes, I will; though I'm giving this steaming-hot release some time to 'kool' down and get any bugs out of the way.

I came to Linux when 4.0 was just released..I didn't find it bad...well, yes, crashing, all the time. But in comparison to my failing Windows box, it was as sturdy and as solid as the genital area of a sailor who just landed from 6 months on the ocean, only to walk into a Red-Light district.

Anyway, 4.4 looks like a very good release; plasma is stable, Phonon ain't giving people grief...

My only REAL problem is my distro; Kubuntu; need I remind you that Kubuntu 9.04 shipped with an alpha and very broken network manager? (which, when your in a place where your only connection is someone else's wireless, your a tad screwed?)

(Disclaimer: I know the Kubuntu team are trying their hardest, and I appreciate that. But no (K)ubuntu One client? No Firefox intergration? Shipping a package manager that cannot install half the stuff in the repos? For something so close to Ubuntu, you'd think it would be at least functional)

Sorry, I'm going offtopic:

The answer is YES, basically. :P

Quite simply

Andy S (not verified) - February 18, 2010 @ 3:11am

Yes. As soon as the packages hit the mirrors for Arch I updated from 4.3 to 4.4, just like I did from 4.2 to 4.3. The only difference is that I went from KDEmod to the normal KDE packages.

Everything works nicely, no crashes here for... a long while. I think the last problem I has was with Chromium and flash, so completely unrelated to KDE.

KDE has gone from strength to strength with the last few releases and it continues to impress me. At this point I don't think any new release will make people switch or change their minds. There are those that still say 'it uses more resources' or 'there are too many options' etc, etc. The same things that people used to say about KDE 3.5. KDE has always had more options to make it the way you want it to work and look. If you don't want to spend 10-20 minutes setting up your desktop that you're going to use every day for the next X months/years then you really need better time management ;-)

I want trust stable release

speedyx0 (not verified) - February 18, 2010 @ 3:11am

I use linux Mint kde CE a very STABLE release. But I use the latest stable release of my favorites applications. The latest wine, amarok, vlc, firefox...
Now I installed kde 4.4 from backports ppa and works GREAT!
Only 2 issue that involve hidden utility like User Management.
I suggest everyone to use Linux Mint KDE CE 8 and if love the latest, switch to 4.4
I think is more secure to switch to the LATEST STABLE fixed app then an old, relative buggy, app.

Certainly

Anonymous Penguin (not verified) - February 18, 2010 @ 5:39am

Yes I am going to try out KDE4.4, in fact it will be there when I update my sidux distribution!

No...

root (not verified) - February 18, 2010 @ 5:53am

Just no. Because my computer has 512 MB of RAM, I hardly managed to use 4.2 when it was there... KDE is to overloaded for me, I stick to GNOME and XFCE.